Personal Bests

A Look Back.

First off, ten million thank you’s to you ALL. I was absolutely floored to find out that I won the Project Food Blog Reader’s Choice Award again! It was such a great boost going into the weekend, as I planned and prepared for the next challenge.

This week’s challenge was called Road Trip, and we were each asked to create a delicious meal that will travel well and still look great. From picnics and school lunches to bento boxes, or any other meal on the go, you need to whip up a entree, side, drink, and dessert to enjoy after hitting the road. As soon as I read the prompt for this challenge I got really excited. We prepare meals on the go all the time, so that we can always be sure that we will have healthy vegetarian options.

For our weekend picnic, I prepared a Mediterranean feast for the eyes and the taste buds…

As part of our challenge, we were each given a handy Project Food Blog cooler to transport our meal to our final destination.

My goal for our meal was to make it as finger-food and eco-friendly as possible. Who wants to mess with plates and silverware when you’re eating on the go? By packing everything in reusable containers, and using serving spoons and napkins from home, we didn’t have to throw anything away and waste unnecessary disposable dishes.

Mediterranean food is not only delicious, it is known for being incredibly healthy, and I decided on a small-bite meze menu for our lunch spread. For our first course, I decided to take the plunge and attempt stuffed grape leaves (all recipes coming tomorrow!).

Stuffed grape leaves are one of my favorite things to order at restaurants, but I have never been brave enough to make them until now. They were much more labor intensive than I was expecting, but the end result was totally worth it.

Brown rice, toasted almonds, raisins, parsley, mint, dill, lemon juice, and olive oil all wrapped up in tangy grape leaves. Just as delicious as I had hoped they would be.

For our main course, I prepared the fixings for falafel pita sandwiches – YUM. The first filling was delicious tabouli salad. But not just any tabouli – my favorite quinoa tabouli recipe!

Traditional tabouli is made with bulgur, but quinoa makes a great gluten-free (and high protein!) alternative.

The addition of minced olives to this salad gives it a little extra salty zest that I LOVE.

In addition to the tabouli, we needed FALAFELS to make our falafel pita sandwiches.

And because I can’t seem to just make anything the traditional way, I made a hybrid of chickpea and sweet potato falafel patties. The perfect bite size for finger food!

I really wanted to stick with my Mediterranean theme, and every time I thought about dessert I came back to the most traditional of all – baklava. But the thing about baklava is, you can’t just make a little bit. You have to make a whole casserole dish full of the sweet stuff! Couple that with my fear of phyllo dough, and I knew I needed to get creative.

I ended up making a vegan shortbread thumbprint cookie, and filling the middle with a baklava-type mixture of toasted pistachios, walnuts, and hazelnuts, tossed with honey, vegan butter, and cinnamon. They were AMAZING.

With everything prepared, we grabbed a few serving spoons and cloth napkins from the kitchen…

Packed up the cooler…

And hit the road to our special picnic spot. Casey was nice enough to be the official cooler transporter since I am still rocking the crutches.

But I did my part by strapping on a backpack with our camera and picnic blanket. :)

We had a special spot in mind, so we made our way to the Metro and headed north towards the city…

Got the spot and started to set up camp.

At the base of the Washington Monument!

I challenge you to find a better spot to enjoy a picnic.

With views of Lincoln and the Reflecting Pool in the distance…

We set up our spread and got ready to dig in!

Who needs junky disposable cups when you can drink straight out of an eco-friendly reusable bottle?

First up – grape leaves.

I am a firm believer that anything with raisins is delicious, but these really were incredible. I could have just eaten the whole tub of them as my meal.

Next up, mini pitas.

These perfect little bite sized pitas required no plates. Just a spoonful of tabouli in the bottom…

We lunched on grape leaves and pitas and took in all the beautiful scenery. The leaves are finally changing here in DC!

We had the perfect weather, on the perfect day, in our favorite city. You can’t ask for anything more.

Okay, except for baklava cookies. Those really pushed it over the edge. We chowed down on our final course, and then ended up like this…

Passed out in the sunshine with my favorite person in the world. I wish we could have stayed there all day!

Staring at the sky…

And simply taking it all in…

Do you see what I see?

But eventually it was time to pack up and go, and say farewell to the city until next weekend! Having spent my whole week trapped on the couch, it was such a nice treat to get out and enjoy the city and the sunshine.

Had it not been for this week’s Project Food Blog challenge, we probably wouldn’t have thought to take a picnic up to the National Mall. But I can assure you now that this is definitely becoming a regular occurrence.

And by using all our own containers, serving tools, and linens – we packed up our picnic without a single piece of waste. Because, after all, who wouldn’t want to protect views like this?

those baklava cookies look like they are to die for! I will be making them this week, no doubt about it. Your picnic spot looks amazing! No leaf change in south Florida so luckily I can see it through all you northern bloggers’ pictures :)

Wonderful!!! I can’t wait to try all of this :)
I adore stuffed grape leaves.
By the way I don’t want to go all the way back through your posts to find the link to the soda machine. I forgot all about you having one. Do you have a link for me? I think I may put it on my Christmas list!

I’ve started drinking sparkling water lately as an alternative to pop and I’ve been thinking about getting a Soda Stream for awhile. At $1/litre for sparkling water at the grocery store it wouldn’t take too long to pay for itself and I wouldn’t have to deal with all those bottles.

Ahhh thanks for helping me out Melissa! Honestly, it is our MOST used appliance. Casey is totally obsessed with it. We probably drink 2-3 bottles of sparkling water a day. It MORE than pays for itself.

I just got a soda stream and absolutely love it. I’ve been nervous about making mixed drinks the way that you do in your post, because I thought that it might flavor the bottle that comes with the soda stream. Do you find that your soda has any lingering flavor of whatever drink you made last (e.g. pomegranate-mint)?

OMG Raphi! WHAT? Awesome! You can’t add the juice before you carbonate it or you get an explosion (trust me). But we haven’t noticed any issue with it tainting the bottles. I just rinse them with super hot water and soap a few times a week. Most often we just do plain sparkling water – I never use the syrups and things it came with. So fun to hear from you. :)

and once again, you SO have my vote… this all looks SO delicious, I love stuffed grape leaves, and the falafel + tzatziki look amazing.

I am so happy you got out and did this!! I love how this challenge has been so much more for some people – more than creating amazing foods… having great experiences and making new regular events! Love the always beautiful National Mall… *chills*

Wow, what a beautiful picnic spread. Everything looks absolutely delicious. And you couldn’t ask for a better picnic spot. It looks like you two went at the perfect time; the Army 10 Miler was this morning and the Metro was a MAD HOUSE. Good luck with the next phase of the competition!

Holy Moly you ROCK! I haven’t voted at all so far (woops.. sorry) but I am now! and I’m voting for YOU. Can’t wait to get the recipes. I’ve been reading your blog for over a year now and you’re an absolute inspiration. Best of luck!

Beautiful!! All of it! :) The spread sounds perfect. I am most interested in the grape leaves and those COOKIES. I think you did a FABulous job turning baklava into cookies. Wow!! You’ve blown me away again. Lovely photos of the picnic as well!

No wonder you won the challenge – you do a great job and everything looks delicious. You make me wish we had headed to the City this weekend – looks like a good day for it. Enjoy your week – and best wishes on quick healing!

And if at all possible I would like to go ahead and make a reservation for 2 – just so if and when you decide to share all these dishes with the general public, I can have guaranteed seating within the first week of your restaurant being opened. :)

What an amazing looking meal! I love Mediterranean food as is, but I think that all of the little twists you added make it even better! I am also terrified of phyllo dough and traditional baklava recipes, so I’m excited to see how your version is done. Sounds awesome.

You are so cute! This looks like a really fun adventure, and the food looks aaaamazing. OF course I am immediately drawn to the cookies :) I never thought of putting Quinoa on pita with tzatziki sauce but its a great idea!

Loved the photos, especially the one of your husband. That is award winning. Really sums up all that is important doesn’t it?
Can not WAIT for the recipes. And WHEN will you have a cook book out?? You need to do one
This post will earn you another Reader’s Choice for sure

I am so excited about how you are advancing and winning special recognition in the PFB challenge. I’ve been scouting the competition and I really think you will go all the way. Can’t wait for your recipes. I love the mini-ideas because they work great for children who take lunches and leave half of everything normal size uneaten.

Hi Emily
Just wanted to say thanks for the inspiation. I am in the UK and looking to get into running. I wondered what your diet and eating tips were for running. Did you follow a particular eating plan during your marathon training. Many thanks and looking forward to more posts.
Karen

omg, love this! and you totally inspired me- i have some leftover sweet potato gnocchi dough that will totally work with some chickpeas for falafal- yum!!!!

and your picnic is adorable- i was briefly in DC this weekend, and thought of you- actually ran past the wash monument on saturday morning- thought to see if you wanted to meet up but assumed you weren’t up for it- shoulda looked for you in the park ;)

glad you are getting out of the house! good luck this round- i’m voting for you right now!

Yay! Another FABULOUS entry! Everything looks perfect and I love that you focused on having zero waste at the end of your picnic. As big picnickers, Billy and I need to be more conscious of our waste…we use too many paper towels! But we’re working on it. :)

Omg, I cannot wait for the recipes Emily!! We love Mediterranean food at our house and I have been thinking of making the stuffed grape leaves for so long. Can’t wait to try your recipe, as I am sure it will be amazing (like all the other recipes I tried from your blog!). Truly cannot wait! And the chickpea patties look delicious too!
Awesome location for a picnic, and you guys went on a beautiful day, look at the sky, super nice!
Ana

Very timely — just last week, Stephen was spooning a million stuffed grape leaves into a container at Wegmans, and I said to him: Ya know, there’s probably a way we can make these. I was planning to look for a recipe this week. Can’t wait to try yours!

I went to High School in Wheaton, and we just brought the whole family up to DC for summer vacation this year. Love that town and lots of great places to eat! (And, I have to say I’m a sucker for tzatziki)

Great post! I love Mediterranean food! It is absolutely one of my faves, but I also have been afraid to make my own stuffed grape leaves. Can’t wait to try your recipes! Hope you are feeling better. Hang in there!

Great post! I love Mediterranean food! It is absolutely one of my faves, but I also have been afraid to make my own stuffed grape leaves. Can’t wait to try your recipes! Hope you are feeling better. Hang in there!

I love meditteranean food so when I saw this spread my mouth began to water. I cannot wait to see the recipes for this meal. I don’t know what looked more tasty, the grapeleaves or those baklava cookies. YUM-O. Great job!

I love meditteranean food so when I saw this spread my mouth began to water. I cannot wait to see the recipes for this meal. I don’t know what looked more tasty, the grapeleaves or those baklava cookies. YUM-O. Great job!